MEDIA STUDIES REVISION

how meaning is fixed, as in how a caption fixes the meaning of a picture

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Audience

viewers, listeners and readers of a media text. A lot of media studies are concerned with how audience use texts and the effects a text may have on them.

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Binary Oposites

the way opposites are used to create interest in media texts - Such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white.

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Code

a sign or convention through which the media communicates meaning to us because we have learned to read it.

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Technical Codes

all to do with the way a text is technically constructed - Camera angles, framing, typography, lighting etc.

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Visual Codes

codes that are decoded on a mainly connotation level - things that draw on our experience and understanding of other media texts

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Iconography

which is concerned with the use of visual images and how they trigger the audience’s expectations of a particular genre, such as a knife in slasher horror films

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Consumer

purchaser, listener, viewer or reader of media products.

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Context

time, place or mind-set in which we consume media products.

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Conventions

the widely recognized way of doing things in particular genre.

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Denotation

the everyday or common sense meaning of a sign

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Connotation

the secondary meaning that a sign carries in addition to its everyday meaning.

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Diegetic Sound

Sound whose source is visible on the screen Non Diegetic sound – Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards

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Enigma

A question in a text that is not immediately answered and creates interest for the audience – a puzzle that the audience has to solve.

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Feminism

the struggle by women to obtain equal rights in society

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Gaze

the idea that the way we look at something, and the way somebody looks at you, is structured by the way we view the world.

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Genre

the type or category of a media text, according to its form, style and content.

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Hypodermic Needle Theory

the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages.

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Ideology

set of ideas or beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of the media text.

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Image

a visual representation of something

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Media Language

the means by which the media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.

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Media Product

a text that has been designed to be consumed by an audience. E.G a film, radio show, newspaper etc.

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Mise En Scene

literally ‘what’s in the shot’ everything that appears on the screen in a single frame and how this helps the audience to decode what’s going on.

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Mode Of Address

The way a media product ‘speaks’ to its audience. In order to communicate, a producer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended audience

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Montage

putting together of visual images to form a sequence.

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Moral Panic

is the intensity of feeling stirred up by the media about an issue that appears to threaten the social order such as against Muslims after 9/11

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Narrative Code

The way a story is put together within a text

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Non Verbal Communication

communication between people other than by speech.

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Ownership

who produces and distributes the media texts – and whose interest it is.

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Propaganda

the way ruling classes use the mass media to control or alter the attitudes of others.

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Reader

a member of the audience, someone who is actively responding to the text.

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Representation

The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.

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Shot

single image taken by a camera.

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Sign

a word or image that is used to represent an object or idea.

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Signifier/signified

the ‘thing’ that conveys the meaning, and the meaning conveyed. E.g. a red rose is a signifier, the signified is love

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Stereotype

representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics e.g. hoodies, blondes

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Still

static image.

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Sub-genre

a genre within a genre.

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Uses And Gratifications

ideas about how people use the media and what gratification they get from it. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.